High Points

Jeff and I have been out on the road for the past week, enjoying the cooler, drier climes of New Mexico. A goal of ours, at which we were successful, was climbing the highest mountain in that state, Wheeler Peak (elev. 13,161 ft.). Jeff and I have been visiting the highest points of states for years. It's a great way to see the U.S. -- you wind up in the strangest places. This was my 33rd high point! And before you start asking -- yes, most of the ones I have left to visit are difficult. (I say most -- I haven't gotten to Iowa, Janna!)

While on the road, I visited (or attempted to visit) a few yarn shops -- high points in their own right! I only got to one. One was closed -- a few I couldn't find. I haven't been in much of a knitting mood over the past month -- blame it on the heat -- so no huge loss. I did manage to get these hanks of sock yarn at The Yarn Shop in Taos. The ball bands have SECONDS stamped on them. I've never seen that before. Does it mean it's full of knots? The price was right, so I grabbed them. And get this -- like the current pair of socks I'm working on, this yarn, too, has a distinct pinkness to it. What's happening to me?

Some progress has been made with the Piano Cushion. I had about 10 responses to my question of which color to use to link all the colors together. Only one person voted for the sandalwood (brown) color. So cream it is. As you may be able to see, I've done nine 8-row sections, which means I've repeated each color 3 times. I think it's looking pretty good, although slipping the stitches across 6 rows does stretch things a bit. I guess that's why linen yarn was called for -- it can probably take it. I'm not finding the linen too harsh to work with. But I'm noticing that the lighter green color seems to be spun thinner than the the darker green and the brown. You can clearly see through it in several places. I'm hoping that washing the fabric after knitting it will cause it to fill out and bloom a little.

In the meantime, we're sweltering here. How is it that I can live 200 miles from where a tropical storm hit the coast, directly in its path, and get only five minutes of rain out of it? It's a good thing I live in an area of only extreme drought. According to this map, the exceptional drought is still 15 miles away!